Rattling the Bones (21 page)

Sergeant Wayne Parry, the man I most don’t want to be marooned on a desert island with, was in the parking area in front of the station.

‘Hullo, Fran,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Turned up, have you?’ He smoothed the smudge of ginger hair on his upper lip that he likes to think is a moustache. ‘Long time, no see. How are tricks?’

I took his greeting to mean I wasn’t on the most wanted list. ‘Morgan wants to see me,’ I said. ‘Or so I hear. Ganesh said you went to the shop.’

‘Your mate got a message to you then, did he? He reckoned he didn’t know where you were.’ Parry gave me that knowing look coppers have off to perfection.

‘He didn’t. He left a note for me. Is Morgan inside?’ I pointed at the building.

‘Yeah, go on in.’

‘Do you know what it’s about?’

I didn’t like appealing to him for help but I wanted to know something about the reason for Morgan’s wish to see me.

‘Ah, well, you’ve got to talk to the inspector, haven’t you?’ He was being awkward.

‘Look, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘This has to do with the sudden death of Duane Gardner, am I right?’

‘Nothing to do with me, sweetheart,’ said Parry, ever obnoxious, ‘I’m not on that case.’

I found that obscurely comforting. But I still asked, ‘So why were you the one sent to my flat?’

‘Shortage of personnel,’ said Parry. ‘I was available. No one else was.’

Morgan was in the reception area when I walked in. She was talking to the desk sergeant about something. When she saw me, she said, ‘Oh, Fran, come on through!’ I found myself hustled down a corridor and into a bleak little interview room which smelled faintly of vomit.

‘Oy!’ I said. ‘If I’m being interviewed I want a solicitor.’

‘You’re not being interviewed,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to talk to you in private. It’s a sort of personal thing.’

‘Not to do with Duane Gardner?’

‘We’ll have to talk about him again but not right now. Your friend, the old lady, Edna Walters . . .’ She paused.

‘What’s happened to Edna?’ I asked sharply. Morgan looked uncharacteristically nervous.

‘She was crossing the road, so witnesses say, and was nearly hit by a motorcycle.’ Morgan held up her hand at the sight of my appalled expression. ‘She had a lucky but narrow escape. A passer-by yelled and jumped out to drag her to safety at considerable risk to himself.The biker was probably a courier, and you know how many of those are on the streets. He didn’t stop. The old lady fell as the rescuer pulled her onto the pavement. She was taken to hospital to be checked over and I understand they are keeping her in overnight.’

‘I want to see her,’ I said firmly. ‘Like, right now. And don’t tell me Edna was wandering across the road without due care and attention. She toddles round the streets all day long, crossing roads.’

Morgan shook her head. ‘She’s getting on, Fran. She really shouldn’t be wandering around. I think she ought to be in a more secure place than that hostel, I mean, somewhere permanent.’

‘You mean lock her away somewhere!’ I said furiously. ‘That would kill her!’

‘She’s likely to kill herself, Fran, if she goes on roaming around like she does. Actually I don’t mean lock her away. I just think she ought to be somewhere under closer supervision. We’ll talk about it later. I’ll take you to the hospital. Come on.’

On our way there I suddenly thought to ask, ‘Hey, how do you know about it? If it was a minor traffic incident, as you want to think, how come you’re dealing with it? Have they downgraded you to traffic section or what?’

‘Not yet,’ retorted Morgan snappishly, ‘although if I continue to have more dealings with you that might yet happen! The reason I’m involved is because you told a lady by the name of Nikki Novak that I was the person to contact if anything happened to your mate Edna.’

‘Nikki at the hostel?’

‘Nikki at the hostel. She was round here, banging on my desk and demanding I tell her what I knew about Edna being targeted by hostile forces, as she put it, like someone was firing Scud missiles at the old dear. I had to tell her I knew sod all, only I said it more politely. Are you going to hand out my name to all and sundry, Fran? Do you think I don’t have enough work on my desk already? Am I on call for all your little problems?’

‘I don’t think it’s a little problem - but then I don’t think it’s a traffic incident, just a near miss between a confused old lady crossing a road without due care and attention and a speeding motorcycle freak.’

‘Has it got anything directly to do with the death of Duane Gardner?’ she almost yelled.

‘Yes!’ I shouted back.

‘Then tell me
how
, if you are so sure.’

‘I can’t, not yet. I will. Give me time.’

‘No private sleuthing, Fran!’ she warned, ‘not if it’s a murder case!’

‘Watch that cyclist,’ I advised. ‘Or you’ll be part of a traffic incident.’

Edna was propped up in bed. They had dressed her in a white garment that fastened down the back and taken away her hat. I’d never seen her without her hat. Without the layers of clothing she was a tiny figure. They’d also given her a haircut. Her grey locks, which had previously straggled round her face, had been trimmed into an urchin cut of a sort which made her look younger. She looked like a discarded rag doll, thrown down on the bed by a careless child.

‘Hello, Edna,’ I said, taking her thin mottled hand which lay on the blanket. ‘How are you?’

Her eyes turned to me but didn’t show sign of recognition. The lucidity with which she had harangued me on the hostel steps had been wiped away as completely as a splash of mud on a window frame, leaving only a clean and blank surface. I felt panic rise in me. I knew that however imperfect the hostel was, Edna had to be returned to it and a measure of freedom. Hospitals turn the elderly into so many case numbers. If she stayed here for long she’d drift away into that nebulous half world and she’d leave here for a residential home where all she would be doing was sitting all day with vacant eyes on a flickering television set. Just the sort of situation she’d escaped from at her own insistence once already. If she was ever to take care of herself again, she had to get out of here.

‘I’m Fran,’ I urged. ‘You know me, Edna!’

To my huge relief some recognition flickered in her expression. Her withered mouth moved. ‘Take me out of here,’ she whispered.

It was heartbreaking. For all her vaunted independence, now she was asking me for something and I couldn’t deliver it.

‘I can’t take you with me now, Edna, but I won’t abandon you, either, I swear it. I’ll sort something out.’ I leaned over her. ‘Edna, do you remember what happened? Do you remember the motorcycle?’

She rolled her cropped head from side to side on the pillow. ‘He wasn’t there when I started across. He came roaring at me . . . he saw me. What have they done with my clothes?’ Her voice was suddenly louder, crosser, more belonging to the Edna I knew.

‘I’ll sort everything out, Edna,’ I promised. ‘Leave it to me.’

There was a rustle behind me and a nurse appeared.

‘Is she badly hurt?’ I asked, straightening up and moving away from the bed a little.

‘Only bruises,’ said the nurse. ‘She’s a tough one, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she is and she wants to go home, back to the hostel where she lives.’

‘Oh, someone from the hostel was already here. We’d like to keep her in and run a few tests on her, just to be sure.’ The nurse gave me a kindly reassuring smile. ‘Are you a relative?’

‘I’m a friend,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she has any relatives. Why have you cut her hair?’

‘Well, hygiene, you know,’ said the nurse conspiratorially.

‘Come off it, she didn’t have nits.’ I was pretty sure Simon and Nikki would have spotted something like that. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sure you need the bed. If she’s OK, not injured, and she wants to discharge herself, she can, right?’

‘The young man from the hostel said he would like us to keep her overnight,’ retorted the nurse, check-mating me. ‘They’re not a nursing home. They’re not qualified to monitor her and haven’t the time. Not that we have, either!’ she finished tartly. ‘She
is
taking up a bed and she’s uncooperative.’

‘Are you going to sedate her?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘That’s for the doctor to decide.’ Nurse was brisker now. Clinical decision. None of my business.

Morgan materialised at my side. ‘Come on, Fran,’ she said. ‘They’ve got a coffee place here. We can talk.’

I patted Edna’s hand and told her not to worry.

‘We’ve got jelly for tea,’ the nurse was saying brightly to her as I left.

‘What flavour?’ Edna’s grumpy tones drifted after us as we quitted the ward. ‘I don’t like green or yellow. I only like red jelly.’

The double doors to the ward swung to and I didn’t hear what kind of jelly it was to be. But I was happy to hear Edna still had the energy to declare her preferences.

The coffee shop was run by a pair of plump ladies from the League of Friends. We gathered up our beakers of watery coffee and a wrapped chocolate biscuit apiece and retired to a free table. Around us people sat quietly sipping tea or coffee. One man was doing a crossword. There were health notices of various kinds pinned to the walls and a painting of a flowering cherry orchard supposed to inspire a sense of happier days ahead, I guessed. Despite that, the atmosphere in the cafeteria was one of quiet depression.

‘We’ve got to get her out of here, Janice!’ I said urgently to Morgan. ‘She’ll deteriorate fast, mentally, I mean. They’ll look after her physically but turn her into a zombie.’

‘She’s quite safe here,’ Morgan returned. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted? For her to be safe?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘I don’t believe this was an accident,’ I said. ‘Someone tried to run her down. She says the bike wasn’t coming when she started across the road. Edna is very observant, in case you’re wondering, and has excellent hearing. She doesn’t make things up. She notices and she remembers.’

‘All the same,’ Morgan said. ‘We have to be cautious about accepting her account. The man who pulled her to safety can’t tell us much. He said the bike roared out of a side road without warning and he saw Edna in its path. He darted out and dragged her to the pavement. She stumbled, of course, and fell, but all the same, he saved her life.’

‘Who was he?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to thank him.’

‘I’ll convey your thanks to him.’

I unwrapped my chocolate biscuit and stared at it without much enthusiasm. Suddenly what I wanted more than anything else in the world was a slice of Grandma Varady’s chocolate cake. I forced the memory away.

‘Someone out there means Edna harm,’ I said. ‘Duane Gardner and Lottie Forester were hired to look for Edna. Jessica Davis is looking for her, too.’

‘Who is Jessica Davis?’ Morgan asked sharply.

I blinked at her in surprise. ‘Hasn’t she been to see you? I thought she was on her way.’

‘No one of that name has been to see me. Who is she?’

I rallied and explained. ‘Lottie told me that her agency’s search was initiated by an old fellow called Culpeper who apparently knew her when she was little. But she doesn’t see him. He acts through his grandson, name of Ferrier. Lottie deals with him only and has done from the first. I got the impression neither she nor Duane had had any face to face meetings with Culpeper.’

Morgan was sitting looking at me in a blank way that didn’t let me know how all this information was going down. It was like speaking into her little tape machine, impersonal, and it irritated me. What was this? Were we back in that interview room at the station?

I said crossly, ‘You probably know all this already. Lottie must have told you. It was like drawing teeth getting her to tell me, but you’re investigating officially. Duane was supposed to find Edna and take her to Culpeper. But Jessica Davis is also acting on behalf of an elderly man and surely it has to be Culpeper as well? How many old blokes can there be out there who want to see Edna after donkey’s years and have the money to hire an enquiry agency? Although I get the impression he doesn’t have as much confidence in Duane and Lottie’s agency as Lottie or the grandson, Adam, think he does. He’s played it a bit crafty and used Jessica as a sort of second-string investigator. That’s how it seems to me. She isn’t a professional. She’s a dance teacher. But she struck me as very efficient and she seemed all set to go and see you after I spoke to you. She left in a hurry.’